1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to secondary markets and more particularly to a system for publishing surplus and procuring shortage items in a secondary market.
2. Description of the Related Art
Chronic errors in demand forecasting regularly leave companies throughout supply chains in various industries with either excess inventories or shortages. For example, the management of electronic component inventory presents such problems. Companies currently resolve these imbalances by turning to the secondary market. In the secondary market buyers purchase components outside of both manufacturer direct and franchised distribution channels, generally on an unscheduled basis. Because of the impossibility of inspecting each component sourced from the secondary market, individual buyers do not have any protection. Particularly, there is a great deal of fraud in the electronic component secondary market, with either outright counterfeit items or refurbished items being fraudulently or unwittingly sold as new items. Other examples include chemicals, pesticides, automotive parts, aerospace parts, and medical supplies. These and other secondary markets are examples where fraud and related issues merit special caution when transacting in such markets.
Secondary markets are also typically very fragmented, meaning that buyers and sellers must maintain corresponding contacts for different brokers and suppliers, with various problems related to authentication, information security, and other issues. Moreover, there is no suitable single location where buyers and sellers can easily make various inventory items available during periods of excess and seek available items during periods of shortage. Brokers are available for certain categories of parts, but brokers also offer inconsistent results. As a result of this fragmented market, companies must rely on individuals with potentially incomplete and inconsistent knowledge of the hodgepodge of contacts available to buy and sell items. Accordingly, there is neither efficiency nor predictability in terms of buying and selling inventory items.
Still another problem is the need for anonymity. In a competitive marketplace, companies have no interest in having competitors know of their inventory shortages or excesses. Knowledge of a shortage could easily be used to a competitor's advantage, such as by purchasing parts to prevent the completion of corresponding customer orders. Similarly, knowledge of excess may allow competitors to better appreciate a competitive landscape, with the ability to adjust pricing or other marketing efforts accordingly.
Associated to the anonymity issue is the highly sensitive data that companies hold with regard to their inventory and corresponding management of that inventory. If a company were to allow an interface with a platform for buying and selling items, an additional problem is the desire to protect this information and to keep it confidential.
Increasing usage of the Internet has created a variety of vehicles for buying and selling goods in secondary markets. Commonly known examples of these are EBay and StubHub. EBay is a well known platform where individuals or companies may list items for auction and sometimes immediate sale. StubHub is a similar platform, specifically dedicated to event tickets. These platforms have built substantial, searchable databases of items. However, while these platforms are useful for individuals and certain other buyers and sellers of goods, they are in no way adequate or acceptable for the purchase and sale of items in secondary markets where high levels of predictability, authenticity and anonymity are sought in connection with competitive business activities. For example, EBay is not an acceptable secondary market solution for large scale buyers and sellers of electronic components. For one, there is virtually no predictability as to the quality or authenticity of these types of parts in an EBay-type solution. There are certain features such as seller ratings and perhaps some level of guarantee for certain purchases, but these do not address the need of buyers to have goods of known origin, quality and status (e.g., “new”, “refurbished”). Sellers may assert such conditions, but the responsibility rests with the seller and there is little or no ability to verify the authenticity of the goods or the corresponding seller representations.
Additionally, the level of anonymity in these platforms is inadequate. Typically, a buyer and seller are connected at the conclusion of an auction or purchase transaction, with the seller being responsible to ship items directly to the buyer. Some mechanisms have been developed to allow sellers to generate and print shipping labels used to ship items, but the seller still knows exactly to whom the items will be shipped. Thus, even if the seller's information does not appear as the shipping address on the label, which provides some protection for the seller, the anonymity of typical auction or purchase portals remains inadequate.
Yet another problem with such solutions is that they do not present items in a fashion that allows efficient assessment of available inventory. This is particularly problematic in various secondary markets where parts can have a variety of corresponding identification numbers (even if they are considered “identical” for the purpose of using them in certain applications, such as is the case where different manufacturers provide an item). This means that searches require a “hit or miss” approach wherein items might be iteratively sought using a keyword or part number search strategy. Additionally, searches typically require the buyer to sift through irrelevant “hits”, and to repeat searches essentially from scratch where an initial effort to find a part fails or produces an exhaustive list with numerous irrelevant items shrouding the sought-after items.
Finally, none of these systems, whether brokers or EBay-type platforms, offers any kind of true inventory management, wherein a buyer or seller may organize inventory, identify shortages and excesses, and interface with a system to automatically address and resolve such shortages and excesses.
Accordingly, what is needed is a platform that provides secondary market inventory management with access to items having certified authenticity. What is also needed is a platform that accommodates this while retaining anonymity, not only with regard to the presentation of available inventory but throughout transaction fulfillment. What is also needed is a platform that attains these goals with a commonly accessible interface for presenting available inventory and reviewing the available inventory of others, again in an anonymous fashion.